Rationally Speaking is the official podcast of New York City Skeptics. Join Julia Galefand guests as they explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense, likely and unlikely, science and pseudoscience. Rationally Speaking was co-created with Massimo Pigliucci, is produced by Benny Pollak and recorded in the heart of Greenwich Village.

On this episode, recorded live at the Jefferson Market Library in New York City, Rationally Speaking podcast celebrates its 100th episode! The show features a full hour of audience Q’s and Julia & Massimo’s A’s. Topics range from science, philosophy and the borderlands between the two. The questions push the hosts to think on their feet, and even to admit their ignorance on stage!

Judith SchlesingerCreative geniuses are always a little bit cuckoo, right? At least, that's the impression you'd get from TV, movies, and plenty of common wisdom. In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Massimo and Julia are joined by psychologist Judith Schlesinger, author of The Insanity Hoax: Exposing the Myth of the Mad Genius, who explains why she thinks the "mad genius" archetype is simply the result of folklore, misunderstanding, and bad research.

Judith's advice: Re-enjoy the geniuses that you have always loved, pull down a Beethoven Symphony and listen to it, go to the museum and look at Van Gogh's beautiful paintings, and if you focus more on the beauty and less on the rumor, we will all be better off.

Jerome WakefieldWhat qualifies someone as mentally ill? The standard for diagnosis is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which just released a 5th edition in 2013 -- but just how objective is it? This episode of Rationally Speaking features Dr. Jerome Wakefield, psychiatrist, PhD in philosophy, and author of "The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder." Julia, Massimo and Jerome talk about the arbitrariness of the DSM and the controversies around the boundaries of various mental disorders, including depression and sexual fetishes.